Transport and infrastructure in Nicaragua
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Nicaragua with the average of all countries in America. The traffic routes have noticeable defects in many places and are often not in particularly good condition.The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the 910 km of coastline. In 2021, about 172,544 freight containers were transported.
› Airports in Nicaragua
Back to overview: Nicaragua
Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 23,897 km. For each of the country's 6.85 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 3.49 meters. This puts Nicaragua in 134th place in the global ranking. However, it is also important to note that the country's population density is very low at around 53 inhabitants per km². In this case, disproportionately long distances generally have to be covered to reach the more remote parts of the country.With an average of 1034 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Nicaragua is considered rather mixed. This corresponds to 16.0 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.
In Nicaragua, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
Nicaragua | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 23,900 km | 3,488.34 km | 183.30 m |
| Railroads | 0 km | 0.00 km | 0.00 m |
| Waterways | 2,220 km | 324.06 km | 17.03 m |
| Commercial harbors | 5 | 0.73 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 4 | 0.58 | 0.031 |
Central America | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 950,800 km | 4,294.37 km | 349.46 m |
| Railroads | 31,600 km | 142.75 km | 11.62 m |
| Waterways | 9,600 km | 43.32 km | 3.53 m |
| Commercial harbors | 15,674 | 70.79 | 0.006 |
| Airports | 233 | 1.05 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)
The 4 airports in Nicaragua
Climate details in Nicaragua
Mega cities - the biggest cities all over the world